1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a system for the display, projection and viewing of stereoscopic images.
2. Brief Statement of the Prior Art
Various techniques have been employed for stereoscopic display and observation of optical images including hand-held viewers in which a separately imaged view of the object is mechanically directed to each of the eves and, more recently, stereoscopic projection systems employing projectors for directing stereoscopic, image-modulated, parallel beams of polarized light onto a screen viewed by observers wearing special eyeglasses having oculars of polarizing material oriented to different planes and effective to transmit light from its respective image-modulated, polarized light beam.
An ancient patent, U.S. Pat. No. 51,906 of Jan. 2, 1866, discloses a stereoscopic viewing assembly of a massive pair of prisms. This device, while operable, is not practical because of the size and bulk of the device, with a consequential high cost of manufacture, and because the assembly requires backlighted images, e.g., transparencies.
British Pat. No. 711,367 of 1954 by Wilson and Silver discloses an improved projection means for the abovementioned 1866 patent. Although this patent avoided the use of transparencies, it did not overcome the inherent costs and clumsiness of the 1866 Swan prism system.
The functional operability of the technology of the inventors' earlier application, 920,280, render improvements on image orientation and projection as herein stated feasible and employable for actual usage.
In our parent application we have disclosed and claimed a steroscopic viewing system which uses one or two thin prisms, each having a plano face and an opposite face bearing a plurality of parallel, spaced-apart V-grooves for viewing reversed, right and left, stereoscopic images.